### 16.1 Weighing Help-system alternatives

Most users expect three navigation elements in a Help system:

- Table of Contents (TOC), preferably in an expanding and collapsing tree form, that tracks your position in the Help system
- Index (IX), with multiple levels and See/See Also capabilities
- Full-Text Search (FTS) that gets you directly to each occurrence of a word or phrase.

You could use generic HTML for a Help system as is, especially with framesets (see §22.12 Using framesets). JavaScript-based TOC templates are available on the Web, and an index is not hard to create. But the search engine is harder. So it is a good idea to consider the existing alternatives for Help systems. Keep in mind that users might run into security issues with any browser-based help system; all such systems use JavaScript.

In this section:

§16.1.1 Considering Help-system features

§16.1.2 Evaluating Microsoft Windows Help (WinHelp)

§16.1.3 Evaluating Microsoft HTML Help

§16.1.4 Evaluating WebHelp

§16.1.5 Evaluating OmniHelp

§16.1.6 Evaluating JavaHelp and Oracle Help for Java

§16.1.7 Evaluating Eclipse Help

Previous Topic: 16. Producing on-line Help

Next Topic: 16.1.1 Considering Help-system features

Parent Topic: 16. Producing on-line Help

Sibling Topics:

16.2 Completing Help system construction

16.3 Producing contents and index for Help systems

16.4 Configuring contents entries for Help systems

16.5 Configuring index entries for Help systems

16.6 Providing related-topic links for Help systems

16.7 Jumping to secondary windows in Help systems

16.8 Creating pop-up topics for Help systems

16.9 Including expandable sections in Help topics

16.10 Setting up Context Sensitive Help (CSH)

16.11 Setting up a dynamic modular Help system